“The Variety, extent and importance of the Business conducted by the Barrack Department, seems to require perhaps more than any other, that all the Accounts should be entered in the Books in such order, and with such precision as that a true Statement of the whole, or of any particular branch of the business may be produced whenever required without constant recurrence to the Vouchers and papers from which these Books are formed. This cannot be effected in any way so well as by regular Books kept in a manner that has been in use for many hundred years, is familiar to Men of Business in all Countries, is equally applicable to the finances of a Kingdom as to the Accounts of a private family, and upon which the best Accomptants have not been able to make much improvement: but in the Barrack Office, so far from adopting this method, they have no Waste Book or Day Book, nor have they any Journal which is the most essential of all Books, where there is a number of Entries to make, and without which they cannot record any transfer of property, nor any transaction whatever which does not come through the Cash Book. Their Ledgers are posted chiefly from Vouchers and accounts, and resemble more what is commonly called a Check Ledger, than one which has a regular reference to a Journal and Cash Book, from which only every Entry in the Ledger should be made. Their Ledgers can never be regularly balanced, nor can an error that may be made, by placing a sum of money to a wrong account, be easily detected—indeed no Examination of any Account in the Ledger can be made without referring to the Vouchers. Much time and labour is often uselessly spent in searching for them, and replacing them.” This report led to an immediate reform, and research through the documents bearing dates later than 1806 was far easier than that through those of the previous decade, at the commencement of which the Norman Cross Prison came into existence. It is needless to say that the documents of the various Government departments now concentrated in the Public Record Office are numbered by millions, and of those relating to Prisoners of War there are over 700 volumes, besides hundreds of rolls, bundles, and packets, pertaining to the Admiralty and War Office departments; these include various branches now completely transformed, such as Transport Board, Commission for Sick and Hurt, etc. Huge Ledgers are not indexed, nor are the accounts entered consecutively. Rough minute books and letter books on all conceivable subjects are in the same chaotic condition, so that whole days have been wasted on a fruitless search, while on the other hand important results have been unexpectedly obtained in unlikely and unlooked-for quarters.